Hamilton Wheel Works
(1879)
F.W. Hore and Son’s Hamilton Wheel Works was one of a number of industries to locate on the edge of 19th-century Hamilton. When he was a young man in the 1850s and 1860s, Francis Hore began his career by running a series of saw mills west of the city. In 1872, he began to make hubs and spokes. His country factory burned down in 1879. Hore then moved to this site next to the railway tracks by the foot of Elgin Street near Land’s Inlet, just north of Barton Street East.
Inside this new factory, close to 50 workers produced all kinds of carriage, wagon and sleigh woodwork. By 1894, Hore’s plant had become “the largest works of its kind in Canada.” After Hore retired in 1892, his sons and grandsons carried on the business until the company closed in 1927.
This was one of a number of Hamilton plants that moved to cheap vacant land at the eastern limits of the city in the late 1800s. One of Hore’s saw mills was located in Crooks’ Hollow, north of Dundas. It was powered by water from the Spencer Creek. Some of the region’s first industries were located in the Dundas highlands.